Recently, they are having a "coffee happy hour special" where your coffee drink is half price if you buy an entree. Since the wonderful iced vietnamese coffee is almost $3, and their hot version (which is not made with espresso) is priced the same, this is a nice deal. I find the hot version to be fairly sublime. I think the "coffee happy hour" is from 4-6. My favorite item there is the summer roll. An order of two is about $3. They are the fresh (not fried) type of roll, but the wrapper is thicker than rice paper, which is how I've had them before. Inside are nice springy noodes, a few vegetables, wonderful Thai basil and a couple pieces of beautifully cooked flavorful fresh shrimp. This is served with what seems like a simple hoisin sauce, and chopped peanuts. There are a good size, larger than the average restaurant egg roll. The combination of tastes and textures, especially the springy, almost rubbery noodles with the crispy vegetables and firm shrimp, is really satisfying. Also, I might be addicted to that kind of basil... I've also had the lemongrass soup, which was a nice clear lemongrass broth with a lot of chicken in it and some cilantro. Period. It was simple, wholesome and inexpensive, especially for what seemed like two or more ounces of chicken in a small bowl of soup. It would be great for someone on the Atkins diet, which is a situation I run into often socially. I've talked to the owner a couple of times, and her philosophy seems to be to keep it simple and do it right. The place was previously a diner, so they have a limited kitchen. They do seem to have a quality/quantity tradeoff going on. Both times I've had the salad, it was very good, but rather small. The first time I had shrimp, which was very flavorful and nicely browned, and the salad was very crisp iceberg (the one really good thing about iceberg) and very good cucumbers in a nice rice wine vinegar dressing. The second time, I had the chicken with the same nice but small salad and I have to agree with Christine's quick review that the chicken needed more flavor. Intellectually, I know that the salad, wontons and asian coffee that I had was probably the right amount of calories for dinner, but I did still feel a little hungry after that, and I didn't really want to spend the money on dessert.
Pittsburgh, PA